


A Pocketful of Posey

by stele3



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/M, Kidfic, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 19:19:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15780429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stele3/pseuds/stele3
Summary: This started as a bskinkmeme prompt and became a full story for theBlack SailsBig Bang. Artwork and beta by the lovely ponytailflint.





	A Pocketful of Posey

****  


_Prologue: Silver, reconsidering_

__

“Nnnnnnngghhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaa _ooooooow_ , God, fuck, is it stuck? It’s fucking _stuck_ , I can feel it!”

“Breathe,” Madi says. She’s braced against the side of the birthing pool next to Silver, in her underwear. Silver wishes he could better appreciate the sight–it’s been about a year since she told him that their relationship was never meant to work–but he’s a little busy pushing a bowling ball out of his vagina.

Another contraction hits and Silver squeezes his eyes shut as his insides clamp down. He’s fairly sure that if he opens them, his eyeballs will pop right out of the sockets. He thinks he’s going to have a stroke.

“ _Breathe_ ,” Madi insists and he sucks in a big lungful before he remembers to pant, to pace himself in time to her breath. They attended the mother-infant classes together, but she was the only one who paid any attention. The rest of the class had spent their time staring in confusion at her belly, then at Silver’s.

“You’re doing great, John,” says the midwife, Eme. The nurse, who kept calling Silver by a name that hasn’t applied to him in years, has been banished after Silver threatened to fling his own poop at her. He’s pretty sure there’s some of his poop in the goddamned birthing pool. How Eme and Madi aren’t tapping out is beyond him.

His back pops alarmingly. “Oh God, my spine just snapped. Madi, Madi, my spine.”

“You’re fine,” she says calmly. She has his half-leg pulled over her lap and is basically holding him upright in what they assure him is the easiest birthing position. If this is easy then Silver dreads to imagine being on his back, even if every part of his body wants to just lie the fuck down and not do this anymore. “This is normal. Breathe.”

“Nnnnnnnn _God_ I should’ve had the abortion. Why didn’t I–?”

“Almost there,” Eme says. “Push now, John.”

Water swirls as Madi shifts, forcing him to widen his stance. “Come on, push down. Deep breath and push–!”

“ _I’ve been pushing_ ,” Silver howls. His body, at least, seems to obey them and he scrabbles at the edges of the birthing pool as spasms seize his whole lower body. Even his missing leg cramps. He’s dying, this is how he dies, swimming in his own shit and–

Suddenly the pressure that’s been building in his abdomen releases. It’s like taking a huge dump, as something slithers out of him. There’s a dodgy flash of pain, which he’s pretty sure means something has torn, but then it’s _out_ and he sags against the edge of the pool in relief.

“Oh thank God. It’s out, yeah? It’s over?”

“Yes,” Madi says. She hooks an arm around Silver’s shoulders and he leans in that direction, wishing he was more able to take advantage of the closeness.

“You told me I should have an abortion,” he says against her collarbone. “Why the fuck didn’t I listen?”

A few feet away, there’s a sudden squall of noise. Silver’s head lifts and he stares across the birthing pool at his–his daughter. At first glance she’s just a slimy, reddish, ugly thing that makes stuttery movements and high-pitched wails; but then Eme dips her in the water, wiping away some of the goo, and Silver sees her hair. There’s a lot of it: they’d told him to expect that, since he hadn’t known until the fourth month and she’d been getting regular doses of T along with him. It sticks straight up from her head in a tiny, auburn mohawk.

Privately, Madi thinks to herself, _That is why_.

 

Once Eme and the nurse have departed and Madi has gone to shower off his poop-water and change into clean clothes, Silver turns to his daughter. “Hullo.”

She’s asleep in his lap, clearly exhausted from the day’s events. Silver knows the feeling. Eme cleaned her up and now instead of being flaky and weird she’s all soft and chubby.

Silver gets lost for a while, staring at her face. This little living creature was _inside of him_ a few hours ago. He gingerly brushes his fingertips over her fat cheek and nudges the beanie on her head to inspect the shock of red hair. “You look like your da,” he decides, then twitches. “Which is me. I’m your da. The…other bloke involved, he had some powerful swimmers, is all. Didn’t know a bloke could get knocked up while on T and using a condom, much less standing upright in the bathroom of the Walrus Saloon, but there you are. Literally. Here you are.”

She makes no reply. Either the drugs or the hormonal impulses of several thousand years of evolution intent on bonding offspring to parent are kicking in because Silver decides there and then that she is the most beautiful little thing he’s ever seen, and he’s going to spend the rest of his life crawling over broken glass just to see her smile.

The door opens and John looks up to see Madi. She’s beautiful, too, all glowing and clean, her braids piled on her head like a crown.

“Hullo,” he croaks, then looks away and clears his throat a few times.

“Hello,” she says gently. “Is she asleep?”

“Yeah.”

Madi comes over to the bed and smiles down at the baby. “Are you ready to talk about the Hubers?”

The Hubers. There’s nothing official, no paperwork involved–Madi knew better than to try pinning John down on anything finalized, he would almost certainly resist just for spite–but she knows a couple who has expressed interest in adoption.

Silver resists the urge to fold the baby up and leap out of the window, mostly because he’s not sure he could get two feet right now. He says nothing and after a minute Madi sighs in that special way she does when he’s disappointed her, and draws up a chair.

“John. You are living in your van.”

“Well I _wouldn’t be_ if someone hadn’t dumped me.”

“I _never_ put you out of my home. Do not twist this about.”

Technically it’s true–but if Madi thinks that Silver was going to go on living together as ‘just friends,’ then she doesn’t know him as well as she thinks. “Plenty of people live out their vans these days. It’s a whole movement–read about it in the Sun.”

“You don’t have a job,” Madi persists. “And even if you got one, what will you do when you have to leave for work? Where will you leave her? John, you cannot take care of a baby.”

“I could if you married me.”

Halfway through he looks away, knowing perfectly well what the answer will be; this will make, what, the fourth time? He still finishes the sentence.

Madi’s face hardens. “You said you would not do that. You promised.”

“Yeah, well.”

“You cannot use a baby as leverage to force me back into your life, John, I have people relying on me–”

“ _Yeah_ , I know.”

“–my work is too _important_ to the community to simply be cast aside, for you or for anyone–”

“Shhhhh. You’ll wake her up.”

Madi presses her lips together but Silver studiously avoids her gaze. Sighing again, she stands. “I will let the Hubers know that you are keeping her. Does she have a name?”

“Not yet. I’ll think of one.”

“They will ask you for one soon. I will come back tomorrow to help you with the paperwork.”

“Thanks,” Silver mumbles and doesn’t look up as she leaves. He starts to lean down to the baby, but winces. “Oh, oh, that’s a bit dodgy on the vag. Here, let’s…yeah, come up here, baby.”

Through a process of leaning back and sliding the baby up his chest, Silver manages to settle with her tucked against his shoulder. She stirs a little, frowning and fidgeting.

“Shhhh,” he whispers. The hormones are really kicking in, he thinks, because he’s gone all sniffly. “Do you know who I am? I’m your da. And your mum, too, kinda. I’m your mum and I’m your da and I’m all you need, yeah? We’ll be fine.”

 

* * *

 

 

_Thomas and James, recovering_

 

The FCA calls while they’re unloading groceries. A friendly London drizzle has set in and Thomas ferries several reusable tote bags inside while James props his phone between his ear and his shoulder, pulling more bags out of the back of the Uber van. “H’lo? Speaking.”

By the time Thomas has dropped off the first few bags in the kitchen and returned, James is squinting into space, his brow furrowed. He has stopped pulling bags out of the Uber and the driver is twitching with the impatience of a man who works three jobs and needs to get to the second one.

James makes an incredulous face at Thomas and says into the phone, “I don’t see how that’s possible. I don’t _have_ a daughter.”

Thomas makes an incredulous face back and nudges James aside to reach into the van, mentally adding a five pound tip as he does so.

Behind him James says, “Well who the hell wrote me down as the father? Because I should tell you, ma’am, I’m very gay.”

Thomas snorts then discreetly checks the driver, who is looking at his phone and doesn’t even appear to have heard James. It pains Thomas that he feels the need to check, or that sometimes he will flinch away from public displays of affection; it’s clear to him—and his psychiatrist—that he internalized a great deal of the hatred that his father attempted to pour into his life, hatred that put Miranda in the grave. Hatred that put Thomas on the other side of the planet from James for as long as he could bear. It’s been quite the process to undo.

He finally pulls out the last tote bag of groceries, closes the back door to the van, and nods the driver back out into traffic.

When he turns, however, James is standing very still. He is pale.

 

“I’m going to kill him,” James says.

“Breathe and count to ten,” Thomas instructs as he puts away the frozen items. Anger has been the demon that Alfred Hamilton bequeathed to James. To be fair, it was always present—he’d had a few reprimands during his Naval service—but the bullet that Alfred fired into Miranda’s head had been aimed at James’ chest. She had stepped in the way, her hands raised—thinking, perhaps, to calm him. Instead her blood had splattered on James, and something in him had _broken_.

“I’m going to,” James says on the inhale, “kill him,” exhale. Silence for ten seconds.

 

Of course, the moment that Thomas manages to calm him, Silver calls.

By then James is leaning against the counter with a glass of Scotch, the non-perishable groceries still heaped around them. James’ phone lies on its back on the granite counter, and when it starts to buzz James automatically glances down.

His shoulders go rigid. Thomas hears the sirens from _Kill Bill_ in his head. “James—”

James already has the phone to his ear, so Thomas crosses one arm across his own abdomen and props his chin on his hand, fingers pressed over his mouth.

“Silver,” James greets tersely.

Thomas strains his ears to hear the reply. When he returned from the wilds of Northern Canada he’d hoped to meet the fellow who James had taken up with in his absence: the few times they’d managed to Skype had been quite the time lapse of a relationship, as James had at first rolled his eyes dismissively and called Silver a good lay but terminally annoying; then he’d fumbled and scoffed his way through thicker, more complicated emotions; then, a bare three months later, he’d leaned in close to the screen and said, “You must meet him, Thomas. He’s irritating as fuck but he’s—Christ, I think I love him.”

Then, when Thomas had landed, James met him at the airport with sad, furious eyes and said that Silver had ghosted him. Stopped answering calls, cut off all contact, simply slipped away.

The voice on the phone is faint but says something about an arrest and needles and a request for a barrister.

James hears him out then is silent for ten full seconds before he grits through his teeth, “Do I have a fucking _daughter_ , Silver?”

“ _No_ ,” the voice on the phone snaps clearly. “ _She’s mine, she’s_ just _mine_.”

 

They go down to the Croydon Police office. Apparently, they’d held Silver there overnight instead of sending him on to a general holding facility after they realized the female identification card in his possession _wasn’t_ stolen. Thomas says that someone higher up must have intervened for Silver’s protection, but Flint thinks it more likely that they realized they’d bungled up badly in their treatment of a marginalized minority and wanted to avoid a suit, which Thomas would have been all too happy to provide them.

Being an inspector with Scotland Yard, Flint’s had some dealings with a few of the local Croydon police, enough that several of the officers present recognize his face, if not his assumed name. Even if they didn’t, they’d know him from the tabloids: an Earl of the crown murdering his son’s wife in a homophobic rage had dominated the news for a long, miserable summer. Every so often someone from the Mail or the Sun snoops around and Thomas has to stop Flint from getting arrested for assault.

Between Thomas’ name—officially, his father disowned him, but after his conviction for manslaughter the Crown stripped Alfred of his titles and bequeathed them to Thomas anyway—and Flint’s reputation, the process moves a good deal faster than it probably should. Of course, that means the attending officers feel they have the right to _chat_ , if only to tell their spouse and brats that they talked to the poster children for Tragic Gays of London. Thomas bears up under their curiosity, like he always does. Flint mostly sits and glares at the door to the holding cells.

When the door opens, however, it’s as though all of his rage sort of…folds in on itself. Oh, it’s still there, except instead of being angry with Silver he wants to find every person who ever hurt Silver and strangle them with his bare hands while screaming, _Why did you make him like this?_

Unfortunately, that would include Flint himself and the words: _This is only a fling._

When Silver sees him, he makes a face. When he sees Thomas, he shrinks in on himself and quickly looks away. He’s not a big man to begin with and hunched up like that he’s oddly childlike.

Childlike. Child. Ah—there’s the anger.

 

* * *

 

 

_Silver, on the defensive_

 

“You’re being remarkably polite,” Silver comments as they all three find a booth in the ironically-named Fancy Bar. Everything about the place is ironic, especially the ‘service,’ which amounts to a pair of heavily-tattooed children staring at them across the room; but the food, if they can get any, is fucking incredible. Silver loves it, unironically.

“I’m being polite?” Flint asks. “I’m being motherfucking polite?”

“You haven’t even threatened to strangle me yet. I’d call that polite.”

Thomas Hamilton is studying the décor. “Look, James, the wallpaper is just pictures of cats.”

Flint— _James—_ obediently looks at the wallpaper. Silver takes the opportunity to study them both. Flint is…fuck. His hair has grown out. So has his gut, but it suits him. He looks sturdy and well-fed and _happy_ , underneath the anger.

As for the other—welp, there he is. ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*Thomas Hamilton*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧, in the flesh. He has an open, kind face, and bright blue eyes. He smiles at the cat wallpaper and the corners of his eyes crinkle gently. He’s every bit as awful as Silver has always imagined.

“So you’re the barrister, I assume?” he asks, bringing their attention back to him.

“If you’d like,” Thomas Hamilton offers. “Or I could ask a colleague to take your case.” Silver had meant it as a backhanded insult—what could be more ridiculous than an internationally-recognized human rights lawyer messing about in family court? But Thomas Hamilton appears completely sincere.

Fucking asshole.

“Whatever,” Silver says, rubbing a hand over his face. His leg hurts. They’d at least given him a holding cell to himself, out of deference to his ~gender identity~ but he hadn’t taken the prosthetic off once. “Just—just get me my daughter back. Now. Today. Can we do that?”

Flint growls, “Yeah, about that fucking _daughter_ —”

“I meant to,” Silver interrupts, dropping his hand. “I did. But first I was planning to have an abortion and then when I didn’t do that I meant to give her up for adoption. And then when she was born—I just didn’t, okay? I meant to call you, but then I needed to figure out how to feed her and where to store formula and how to change diapers, and Madi got arrested—did you know Madi got arrested?”

“No.” Flint’s brow furrows as he sits forward. He and Madi have never really been friends, per se, but they respect each other a good deal. “When? For what?”

“Hiding migrants from the Home Office. She won’t—fuck.” If he starts getting on this, he’ll lose it for real. “She’s refusing to take a plea bargain. So then I needed to figure out where to _get_ diapers and formula because Madi’s the one who knew about benefits, and Posey barely slept the first two months, and then I tried to pay Madi’s bail bond, but somehow she got the money redirected to someone else and right away the fucking _van_ broke down so I didn’t have money to _fix it_ and Lionel got sick, and then _we all_ got sick, and my _phone_ got shut off so I couldn’t _call_ you anyway, and—”

Flint reaches across the table and takes Silver’s hand. Silver twitches, still struggling against the squeeze in his chest. “Silver. Stop. Breathe out.”

He obeys, keeping his eyes on the table in front of them instead of staring at Flint’s hand on his. He doesn’t dare let their fingers tangle. Fucking Thomas Hamilton is _right there_. “They took away my anxiety meds,” he says once his ribcage stops being full of thick wet mud. “That’s why this is happening.”

One of the children wanders over then and asks them what they’re doing there. Flint orders food—he actually remembers what he had last time—and once the child has wandered off Thomas whispers softly, “Who’s Lionel?”

“I don’t know,” Flint whispers back.

“Ferret,” Silver says.

“Oh,” Flint says, “ _no._ ”

“Listen, fucker, that ferret is a registered service animal, and also my main source of income. We’re picking him up, _today_ , too, so you,” Silver points at Thomas Hamilton, “work your goddamned magic.”

 

Apparently Thomas Hamilton is made of magic—asshole magic—because in very short order they’re picking up Lionel from some kind of holding facility.

“I can’t believe you still have this fucking rat,” Flint complains as he glares through the bars of Lionel’s cage, currently positioned in his lap. [Lionel](https://www.pets4homes.co.uk/images/articles/3569/large/5763bfde8c34f.jpg) chitters at him, scurries to the back of the cage, then scurries back and pokes his quivering nose through the grate at Silver.

“He’s not even rodentia,” Silver retorts and feeds Lionel a baby carrot that he pilfered from Thomas Hamilton’s salad.

 

Silver _a b s o l u t e l y_ does not want to take them to the van, which is in another holding facility, but it holds all his earthly possessions (such as they are), so...

Thankfully, Thomas Hamilton is on the phone, talking to someone from the FCA, and he stays with the car. Silver takes Lionel out of his cage and lets him wee in the parking lot while they wait for the van to be towed out to them.

“I’m going to need you to explain how that thing is your source of income,” Flint says.

“Instagram. You know what Instagram is?”

“Yes, I fucking know what Instagram is.”

“Well, you didn’t know Snapchat, so pardon the fuck out of me.” Silver gathers his hair up on top of his head in a bun. Flint’s watching him openly and Silver has to stop himself from shivering. Christ, he’s still the same. After a few weeks Silver’s memory had faded—with some significant help from Muldoon’s weed supply—and he’d half-convinced himself that the whole thing was his imagination. That Flint couldn’t suck the air right out of the room with his presence, that he wasn’t the one person who could light Silver’s whole stupid body on fire just by looking at him.

It’s all still there, and he takes a casual step away from Flint. “I made an Instagram for Lionel a while back, but when Posey was born, I put her on it, too. It took off and I monetized. Some people send me fanart, and I put it on mugs, t-shirts, that sorta thing.”

There’s a brief pause. “Posey.”

Oh. “Yeah. Did…they didn’t tell you?”

Flint’s staring into the middle distance with a weird expression. “I think they did, but it didn’t really register until now. Posey. It’s…cute.”

Silver hesitates then says with some slyness, “The Instagram is called ‘A Pocketful of Posey.’”

Flint rolls his eyes. “Of course it is. You little shit.”

Right then they bring the van out. Silver puts his head down and powers through it as fast as possible, grabbing the necessaries: his cane, his anxiety meds—he dry-swallows his missed dose—Lionel’s harness and food, diapers, formula, all of Posey’s clothes, his vials of T—he’ll need to get more needles from somewhere, the fucking cops confiscated all of his—and his sharps container. He _hates_ that Flint is still standing next to him, seeing the bed and the makeshift crib in the back of the van, but whatever. At least he takes the items that Silver hands to him; he even accepts the end of Lionel’s leash once Silver gets the squirmy little guy into his harness.

Then he has to go and ruin it by saying, “You should come home with us.”

“ _Fuuuck_ no.”

Flint scowls. “Where are you going to go? This piece of junk doesn’t even work.” The van and Flint have a long, turbulent history.

“I just need to charge my phone, then I’ll call Muldoon.”

“Muldoon? No, absolutely not—Silver, you’re not taking a baby to live with a drug dealer!”

“Do _not_ tell me what to do.”

Flint juts out his lower jaw, showing off his crooked bottom teeth. “So that’s it, then? I still get no fucking say in anything? She’s my _daughter_ , Silver.”

His voice cracks and Silver looks away, grabbing for his jacket from the van and yanking it on. It’s on the tip of his tongue to shout, _She’s mine, she’s mine, fuck off._

Flint exhales hard and then all of a sudden he’s a lot closer. “I’m sorry. Look, just—listen.” His hand, big and warm, lands on the side of Silver’s neck. Silver holds very still and keeps his head down, pretending to examine some baby powder while his heart betrays him. “I want to meet her, at least. Stay tonight, I doubt we’ll be able to pick her up today anyway.”

Oh ta, Silver really needed that extra burst of panic. It’s been ten hours since he last held his baby, the idea of not getting her back is a clawing mess in the back of his mind, gradually devouring all other thoughts. “Why not?”

Flint gives him a look, like he knows that Silver is surreptitiously checking to see if his rescue meds are nearby. The thumb resting on Silver’s jaw rubs back and forth a little; _that_ successfully distracts him, or at least gets him to panic about something else. “I expect they’ll want to interview you,” Flint says gently. “Even if they drop all charges, they know you’ve been living out of a disabled vehicle. You’ll talk to a Child Protection Officer and they’ll make a decision of whether or not it’s in Posey’s interest to…return to you.”

Silver needs a fucking cigarette. He fumbles one out of the pocket of his jacket, jamming it in his mouth and lighting up. The lighter shakes in his hands. “They can’t do that,” he says once he’s taken a drag. “They can’t.”

At his feet, Lionel chitters and tries to claw his way up Silver’s leg; _he_ knows what it means when Daddy smokes. Flint doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to, he’s a cop, of course he’d know the exact parameters for removing a child from an unfit guardian. He’s probably done it himself.

“Okay,” Silver says. He takes another drag, blows it out. “You got any pets at your place? Lionel hates cats.”

* * *

 

 

_Thomas, observing_

 

They post up John Silver in the ground floor bedroom. James has been using it as a home office, but the only other option is to put him on the first floor next to their bedroom, and the stairs of their flat are rather narrow.

“And here’s the kitchen,” Thomas says, gesturing to the mid-century galley in question. “Help yourself to anything in the fridge, we’ve tried to mark all the takeout boxes with the date they were brought home.”

Silver, who insisted on stopping for McDonald’s on the way here, sips his drink through his straw and says nothing. His only comment thus far has been, “Chelsea. Nice.”

 

“He’s charming,” Thomas informs James as they settle in bed.

James gives him a look.

“He is,” Thomas insists, “with you. I think he’d rather prefer that I was back in the Arctic.”

James frowns, fidgeting with the book in his hands that he’s pretending to read. Downstairs, Silver has been pacing from his room to the kitchen and back. Thomas would wager that he’s an anxiety eater.

“He’s…had a hard life,” James says. “I don’t think it’s personal.”

“I didn’t think for a moment that it was.” Thomas rolls onto his side, propping his head on his hand. “He mentioned a Madi? Was that his partner?”

“Ex, I think. Activist. You know Hakeem Scott?”

“Oh my. Is that his—?”

“Daughter. Yuh. She broke up with Silver right before he and I met. He…took it hard. He was always scheming ways to get her back, but I’d be surprised if she acquiesced. There were several factors to the end of their relationship, foremost among them his opposition to the risks she took in her community work.”

“I can imagine. So. You’re a father.”

James’ eyes widen, as they have periodically since they got that fateful call; likely he’s been thinking those same words to himself at regular intervals. “I…suppose I am, yes.”

Smiling, Thomas curls a hand over James’ forearm. The touch makes him bend down and press a gentle kiss to Thomas’ mouth that deepens and turns into other kisses. James slides down on the bed until they are face-to-face, on their sides.

“Do you want to be?” Thomas asks.

James wrinkles his nose. “Bit late to be asking that question, don’t you think?”

“Not necessarily, no. There are many ways to provide for a child and many things you can provide without being a parent. I expect that’s the role that Madi Scott provided as well, for a time. If you want, Silver and the baby can live here with us. You could watch her grow up and support her as a member of her tribe, but you wouldn’t be taking on the role of father.”

For a long moment, James stares into space. Watching his expression, Thomas can follow the path of his thoughts, so it is not a surprise when James says, “I think—I think I want it. I want to be her father.” He blinks as if startled, then looks at Thomas guiltily. “I know we said—”

“It doesn’t matter what we said before.” They’d discussed having children—first Thomas with Miranda then Thomas and Miranda with James. When first he’d entered his sham marriage, Thomas had simply assumed that they would produce children as swiftly as possible. Indeed, he’d longed for it: the conversion therapists had all insisted that fatherhood would fill the aching gap inside of him. It hadn’t taken Miranda long to discover his true sexuality—along with his shamefully large stash of gay pornography—and, instead of feeding the tabloids another messy royal divorce, she had protected him. She’d used her position as his beard to gain certain freedoms, for how could his father object when the public face of their marriage was so blissful?

Children had remained a tangled subject even after James came along. God, _James_ —he’d been everything Thomas and Miranda both wanted, in a smart black dress uniform. Even then, however, with the specter of Alfred Hamilton hovering above them all, it’d seemed like too complicated a situation to involve children.

“Would _you_ …want to be a father?” James asks hesitantly.

Thomas touches the back of his knuckle to James’ cheek. “I think that I very much see myself in the role of elder tribesman, my dear.”

 

Morning finds Silver hunched at their kitchen table, mechanically shoveling cold samosas in his mouth. From his blank stare and the dark circles under his eyes, he doesn’t appear to have slept all night. Thomas and James restrain themselves to toast and coffee; even that slight delay has Silver frowning and fidgeting towards the door.

The interview goes as well as can be hoped. It helps that James is there on the same side of the table as Silver, and Thomas expects his own presence in the room—and his formidable reputation in court—doesn’t hurt, either. Silver spends the entire interview jiggling his good leg. He’s wearing what Thomas hopes is his nicest pair of jeans; they have worn cuffs and sparkly sequins on the pockets but they’re clean and possess a minimal number of holes.

Objectively speaking, he’s not the worst guardian in the world. Thomas feels no hesitation in advocating for baby Posey’s return: from the few items of paperwork he’s seen, the examining physicians have all declared that she’s healthy, well-fed, and developmentally average for her age. Given the odds stacked against Silver in that regard—poverty, physical disability, mental illness, gender discrimination—his results are admirable and speak to his commitment.

In the waiting area Silver, who’s using a metal and plastic crutch adorned with various stickers in addition to his prosthesis, drops into the closest chair and scowls. “Well, that was shite. Where is she? Is she here?”

“I expect they’ve had to pick her up at the temporary placement.”

Silver gets a pinched look on his face. Though he is entirely without paternal aspirations, Thomas can only sympathize with Silver: it must be dreadful to go from being a child’s solitary caretaker to not even knowing where she is or who, precisely, is caring for her. Unfortunately, it can’t be entirely healthy, either. Everyone needs a partner, at the very least.

Towards that end, he asks, “John, can you tell me more about Ms. Scott’s case?”

“Ugh, _Silver_. No one calls me John. I don’t know exactly what she’s been charged with—interference in government business, I suppose. After the Brexit vote she got in touch with an imam at the Fazl Mosque and started helping migrants and refugees either get their papers or move to Ireland. Once May got voted in, the Home Office cracked down and Madi hid a whole family in her flat.”

A door opens and closes somewhere behind them, and there’s the distant sound of a baby squalling. Both Thomas and James twitch; but Silver doesn’t even turn around. Thomas asks, “Do you, perhaps, know who represents her currently?”

“No. I put in money towards her Crowdjustice…Crowdjustice? Christ you people are old, she had a legal fund. It got funded, she’ll have some kind of representation by now.” He pauses. “If you want to do something about that, it’d—I’d be grateful.”

Thomas has his phone out. He doesn’t remember everyone he went to school with, but he has a few guesses as to who would take this case or who would _know_ who took the case. “If you’d care to make some introductions, I imagine I could be helpful. I also don’t want to presume that she wishes to make this an international case—”

He cuts off, because Silver is laughing with one hand pressed over his face. “Oh, that’s exactly what she wants. That’s just what she’s after. They’ve been offering her all sorts of plea bargains but she won’t take any, she wants to take the whole fucking British government to court and make them burn her in the street as a witch.”

“Ah. Are her options that poor, that she—?”

“No, they’re fucking not. She just won’t bend. Just fucking—ask her barrister. There’s a fellow she’s got, Julius.”

“Julius—wait, _Julius Kanibe_? Is that her—?”

He cuts off, because Silver has suddenly bolted out of his chair across the room. A woman, oh my, carrying [a red-haired baby](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rBK9EspxCNw/U5Ixv05ZFlI/AAAAAAAAH9g/TtoHPY_dZ-U/s1600/52.png) has come out of a doorway; the baby isn’t exactly crying, but her face looks confused and distressed, and she’s whining softly.

That changes the moment she sees Silver. Both her arms go for him and she leans sideways in her caretaker’s grasp, nearly pitching herself to the floor.

Silver is saying, “Hi sweetie, hi honey,” then, to the caretaker, “Give, give.”

“Sir, you need to sign—”

The baby’s whine gets louder. James is up now, too, his mouth hanging open and his eyes on the baby girl. Thomas has to push him forward and speaks to the caretaker, a petite woman in a hijab. “Hello, I’m the guardians’ counsel—James, give over your ID—yes, hello, these are the child’s fathers—”

“ _Give give give_ ,” Silver says, getting louder and crowding closer. The caretaker looks like she wants to back away in alarm, but little Posey has managed to grab hold of Silver’s outstretched hands, so the poor woman does _give._

An electric current of tension goes out of Silver instantly. “Hi, sweetie,” he says, crutching his way back to his chair. “You would not _believe_ the past few days I’ve had, darling, I hope you’ve enjoyed a more pleasant stay with the city of London than me. Yes, hello, I’m very happy to see you, too,” he adds as the baby babbles a stream of nonsense at him. She’s gripping the ends of his hair in both hands and beaming up at him.

Silver smiles back then checks her diaper, slides a jacket onto her shoulders, pulls a gaudy pink ribbon from her hair and tosses it onto the floor, and uses the long scarf around his neck to wrap her up against his chest. Somehow, he accomplishes all of this in about seven seconds without dropping his crutch or the baby.

That, more than anything, likely gets them out the door while avoiding the awkward moment of presenting _Silver’s_ ID, which would say an entirely different name than _John Silver_.

* * *

 

 

_Flint, stunned and hopeful_

 

Flint spends the whole ride home peeking over the back of his seat at his daughter.

His _daughter_.

 _His_ daughter.

She is small, of course. She’ll be about ten months, soon. Christ, ten months. Silver has her in his lap and is carrying on a steady stream of conversation: him, commenting on the state of her hair (auburn, like Flint’s), the rate of traffic, how the blasted rat has missed her company; her, in soft babbles to which Silver pays close attention. He is so bloody focused on her, Flint thinks a mountain could fall on Piccadilly Square and Silver would first ask little Posey what she thinks of the lava flow.

Whenever he faces forward again, he’s conscious of Thomas’ hand, steady and holding his own.

 

When they arrive home, Flint gets a better look at her face. Silver’s trying to heft himself out the back of the Uber and can’t quite manage it between his crutch and the baby. Flint says, “Here, I can—”

He takes her and she’s—she sort of rolls her head around and looks up at him. Her expression is open, curious, but skeptical. She looks like she fully doubts his ability to hold her for more than a few seconds and scrunches up her nose in a terribly familiar way. Silver must share that doubt because as soon as he’s upright he takes her back from Flint and holds her against his chest.

 

He should take the hint, he really should, but he doesn’t.

Thomas feeds them all reheated leftovers, except for the baby, who eats spoonful after spoonful of fruit puree. On the floor, the sausage rat eats kibble of some kind.

Thomas is more than Flint has ever goddamned deserved and if ever that was in doubt he proves it in this moment: he goes upstairs and leaves the three of them alone downstairs. It’s barely afternoon but Silver says, “It’s naptime,” as if it’s perfectly expected for grown men to adhere to a baby’s sleep schedule. Which, of course he has: as her only caretaker, he’d likely slept and woke at her pace.

“You want some help?” Flint asks.

Silver’s in the middle of standing up, which is a bit of a process: he binds her to his chest—she’s fussing, clearly cranky—arranges his crutch, then braces himself on the table and stands. It’s all so much more careful than Flint remembers. Once he’s up, Silver puts a hand under her butt and looks down at Flint with a carefully blank expression.

“Alright,” he says.

Posey fusses louder as Silver changes her, kicking her legs. “Darling, you know that Daddy can’t hit a moving target. While I appreciate the opportunity to practice, perhaps we could do it a different time, when certain fluids are not in danger of escaping? There we are, thank you, love. Now, which onesie do you want, hm?” Silver holds up two baby bodysuits, one a pale green and the other a pale purple. “Any opinion on the subject or shall Daddy choose?”

The fussing turns into a proper wail that makes Flint wince and Silver quickly tosses aside the green bodysuit, slipping her into the purple option and making soothing noises all the while.

“You talk to her a lot,” Flint observes. He feels awkward, standing there watching and doing nothing. Never once, in the five months of their acquaintance—and Christ, had it really only been five months?—did Flint think of Silver as the parental type. Far from it: they’d met because Silver’s shite van had broken down in the middle of the street and he’d stopped to help push it to the side. Silver had offered him a bump as thanks and, when Flint had revealed that he was an inspector, shifted the offer to a blowjob. Not exactly an auspicious start to their relationship.

At least the blowjob had been ace.

Watching him now, though, Flint wonders at the change. Silver is…well, still Silver, obviously. But Flint’s never seen this kind of focus and calm out of him before except when he was conning someone; the rest of the time he was the kind of human disaster who ate gummy bears for dinner and screamed at the sight of emotions.

“Talking increases language function and boosts brain activity in infants,” Silver says while fitting Posey’s chubby arms into the sleeves of the onesie. “Read it in the Guardian.” He pauses in the act of buttoning up the front of the onesie and glances at Flint guiltily, visibly realizing that he’s done the whole routine on automatic. “Sorry,” he says, scrunching up his nose. “Want to, uh, finish up?”

There’s only a couple of buttons so Flint shrugs away the gesture. “It’s alright. Did Madi not…help you with this?”

Silver’s hair falls in his face as he leans over Posey; it’s shoulder-length again, but he hasn’t got it half-tied like he normally does. Or did. “She helped. She got me benefits, free diapers, free formula—”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I meant.”

Flicking his hair back, Silver shoots him a scowl. “I don’t want to talk about this. Here, you want her? I need to fix the bed.”

With that he lifts the baby by her sides and holds her out, not quite thrusting her into Flint’s arms. Flint takes her on reflex, one hand going under her bum and the other cupping the back of her head. Even in her sleepy state, Posey’s eyes immediately find his. Her gaze is gratifyingly less skeptical than before, but no less curious.

“She’s very—engaged,” Flint says, staring back. He feels _studied_ and can only hope that he’s making a good first impression.

“She’s my social butterfly. Wherever she goes, she always wants to talk to everyone. If you let her, she’ll have a staring contest for hours and afterwards she’ll know all your passwords.”

Silver sets about rearranging the sheets and blankets on their spare bed to his careful specifications. After a few moments—in which Flint silently realizes that Posey might’ve got his hair and eyes but she _inherited Silver’s ears_ , which are impossibly even tinier on her—Silver says, “Madi didn’t want a baby. Said it’d interfere with her work, and you know how she feels about that.”

“Yuh.” Flint’s only met Madi twice; in his mind, she is a pillar of flame, a torch, and he supposes it would be difficult for flame to hold a child in its arms without either being extinguished or burning the child.

At this particular second, however, as Posey’s eyelids droop, Flint can’t imagine seeing her and not being absolutely taken.

“She’s so small,” he murmurs. Silver’s finished with the sheets and has come back over to stand next to him. Posey’s skull is a soft weight balanced in his palm. One of her feet rests on his forearm.

Silver’s hand curls around his wrist, tugging him over to the bed. He’s constructed a kind of nest in the center of the bed perfectly sized for Posey. Flint eases her down, wincing when she stirs and frowns. She doesn’t open her eyes, though, and he slips his hands out from under her before sitting down on the mattress.

Silver sits down next to him. Now that he doesn’t have his shoulders up around his ears, he looks absolutely knackered. “Thank you, by the way. Have I thanked you, yet? I should thank…Thomas, too.”

“That’d probably be good.”

“Fuck off. I’ll thank him tomorrow. Is he…does he mind, that we’re here?”

It’s a loaded question with a lot of different answers. “No.”

Silver doesn’t look convinced. “He fucked off upstairs pretty fast.”

“He wanted to give us space.”

A flicker of something in Silver’s gaze. “Did he? That was nice of him.”

It is, but Flint doesn’t bother confirming. Instead they spend a few seconds just looking at each other. Flint doesn’t mean for it to happen but here they are: looking at each other’s eyes and cheeks and hair and mouths.

The mood is destroyed as the fucking sausage rat hops up onto the mattress. Flint moves to bat it away, but Silver stops him. “They like to nap together. He’s her teddy bear.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? What if he bites her, Silver?”

“He hasn’t yet. Oh calm down,” Silver snaps in a whisper, smacking Flint’s hands as the sausage rat wriggles into the nest with their tiny, sleeping, vulnerable daughter. Greek myths about snakes and cribs flash through Flint’s mind. “Lionel loves her. Look, see? Cuddles time.”

The sausage rat has curled up around Posey, his head resting on her belly. Posey shifts, stretching out her legs before resting one half-curled fist on Lionel’s head.

Silver grins then takes out his phone and takes several pictures. Gets up, moves around the bed, takes several more. Pauses. Looks at Flint.

“You mind?” he asks in a whisper, waggling the camera.

It’s been years but the gossips still know Flint’s name. The most recent speculation is that he and Thomas have broken up, driven apart by grief and the wreckage of their personal tragedy. It might have died a lot sooner if Thomas hadn’t made a public statement in support of the recent ban on conversion therapy. Parliament passed the ban, but it’d re-ignited interest in their private lives, enough that Flint suspects it contributed to Thomas’ decision to take the Inuit water rights case. Nothing like leaving the country for seven months to cool one’s notoriety.

Flint had stayed. Somehow, Flint has always been the one left behind.

He starts to say, “I don’t—”

“I’ll crop out your face,” Silver whispers quickly. “Just, I’ve got to tell my fans something. Last anyone heard, I’d been arrested and Posey’d been taken from me.”

“Your fans.”

“On Instagram. You should see my inbox, they’re ready to burn down the British empire for me.”

Watching Silver beam and take another picture of Posey and Lionel curled up together, Flint has to admit that he knows the feeling. “Alright.”

“Alright?” Silver waggles the phone again, shifting around the bed.

“Yuh. How do you want me to—?”

“Just sit still, right like you are.”

Flint obeys and Silver kneels on the far side of the mattress, carefully aiming the shot. He takes several pictures with the tiniest shifts of perspective or angle, then scrunches lower and takes several more before he appears satisfied.

“What now?” Flint asks as Silver hunches over his phone.

“Shhh, filters.” Silver scrunches up his nose, his fingers flying.

Flint rolls his eyes and settles in to contemplate Posey. She has her head turned to the side, her face utterly relaxed in sleep. He almost misses her intent stare, even if it is rather unsettling in nature. The sausage rat, too, appears utterly content, and Flint begrudgingly has to admit that they make quite the picture, curled up together like they are.

A poke to his knee makes him turn. On Silver’s phone screen is an even better picture of the bed as it is: Posey and Lionel in their nest of sheets, asleep. He’s made it black and white, but softly so. The rest of the bed looks like a spare and clean halo disturbed only by Flint himself sitting on the far side of the sheets. True to his word, Silver has carefully cropped out everything from the neck up; still, Flint finds himself wincing at the hair strands hanging around his shoulders. At least he’s still wearing the button-down shirt and dress pants from their interview this morning and doesn’t look like a complete cabbage.

Below the picture Silver has written: **apocketfulofposey** _Reunited & it feels so WHEW. W/o going in2 deets, I got some help from: Posey’s babydaddy. YES, the mystery man appears. I told you it wasn’t Harry! Nyway, for now we are all safe and together. Thank you to every1 who sent messages and offers of help. Will update soon after IVE had a snooze. #FreePosey #SaveBabyPosey #PoseyandLionel #FTDspeaks_

Flint reads it twice then asks, “Harry?”

“Someone made a joke that her da must be Prince Harry, on account of the hair.”

“Ah.” Then, “Eff tee dee?”

Silver blushes a little. “Female to dad. Okay to post it?”

Flint shrugs, somewhat surprised that Silver’s being so solicitous. He can remember pushing Silver’s phone away from his face with a scowl and hopes to hell that none of _those_ pictures made it to Instagram. Apparently not, if he’s a ‘mystery man’ to them.

Tucking his phone away, Silver returns to sit next to Flint on the bed. He smells like that awful vape juice he likes, some kind of blend that claims to be ‘floral’ and smells more like cotton candy. It must be a permanent aura, because he hasn’t seen Silver vape all day. Maybe he did it this morning before Flint and Thomas woke up.

 

“I missed you,” Silver admits.

“You fucking asshole,” Flint murmurs into his mouth.

“Yeah,” Silver agrees, even as he pushes forward, nudging Flint down onto the bed.

They kiss and vaguely grope at each other, mindful of not jostling the mattress with any more vigorous activity. Posey’s still asleep; Lionel squirms a little but doesn’t open his eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

_Thomas, learning and planning_

 

It doesn’t surprise Thomas to awaken alone, though he’d be a liar if he said that it didn’t cause him any anxiety.

It’d been different with Miranda. James was perhaps a five on the Kinsey scale, with Miranda as his nearly-solitary exception, but that wiggle room had been enough to buy them stability. As the solitary man in James’ life, Thomas had never fretted over his place, and he hopes that Miranda felt the same.

Now he comes downstairs to squabbling.

“—chewed off a baby’s _fingers_ ,” James exclaims as he waves his phone in the air. The baby  
Posey is seated on their sturdiest chair, her booster seat strapped in with multiple belts. Currently she is happily smashing small avocado slices between her fingers then examining the pureed result with great interest before licking her hands clean, occasionally pausing to display her hand to her father, who smiles and murmurs a few private words of approval.

To James he says, “Yeah, well, they should’ve fed the poor bugger more, shouldn’t they?” before stuffing a bagel in his face. He waves at Thomas, which is improvement over yesterday. Last night must have gone very well indeed.

Thomas isn’t sure yet what kind of relationship he wants to have with John Silver. While in the Arctic he’d imagined a bright, charming young man, idealistic by turns and cynical by others; handsome, obviously, to have so thoroughly turned James’ head; roughened by life but still capable of softness. He’d imagined being able to love that sort of person.

John Silver is precisely all of those things, and Thomas feels absolutely no romantic attraction to him whatsoever.

“Here’s another,” James says. “A couple in Pennsylvania were charged with neglect after their pet ferret _ate part of their baby’s face_ —”

“You take your bloody phone,” Silver says, leveling a finger at James, “and you google how many people get killed by cows every year. Don’t look at me like that, it’s a lot. Way more than get killed by sharks. But there’s no Cow Week on the Discovery Channel, is there? Now google how many babies get attacked by dogs. Bet if I’d’ve a dog, you wouldn’t think twice, but one ferret gets hungry and everyone in the world has something to say.”

James seems at a loss to counter that argument and chooses instead to pour Thomas a cup of coffee and scowl suspiciously at the ferret skittering about the legs of the table.

“Thank you, darling. Silver, I thought we would go shopping this morning for diapers and such.”

Silver straightens. “You don’t need to. I can get some from the hospital.”

“Certainly, but considering that—had you chosen to pursue legal avenues—James would owe you an entire year of child support, it would make me more comfortable if you’d allow us to cover some costs in addition to the child’s housing. It seems only fair. Additionally, it leaves the supply of free diapers for those who truly have no other avenues to pay.”

Silver blinks a few times then points a finger at Thomas. “You’re good.”

Smiling, Thomas sips at his coffee. “I like to think my education didn’t go to waste.”

 

Once Silver points out that little Posey is due to start walking at any moment—“Look,” he says, holding her arms up; she wobbles like a drunk, mumbling and staring intently at her own feet as she attempts a few steps—their shopping list expands considerably to include baby-proofing gear for the flat.

Thomas gets a call from an unknown number while James and Silver are arguing over plastic gates. “Hello?”

“I am trying to reach Thomas Hamilton, Esq.,” says a heavily-accented voice.

“Speaking. Who is this, please?”

“It’s Julius Kanibe, Esq.”

“Ah.” Stepping away, Thomas drops his voice. “I should mention that I’m in public and I cannot guarantee the confidentiality of this call.”

“Understood. This will be short. My client has rejected your offer of joint representation, though she does pass along her regards and appreciates your interest.”

“I see.” Thomas glances sideways. Silver has Posey tucked against his chest again, snug in her scarf-sling; he’s arguing with James in a most spirited manner. Judging from the past forty-eight hours, Thomas thinks they must spend most of their time together in some state of disagreement, a condition which they both seem to enjoy. “Would you…I hate to use you as a messaging service, sir, but I would appreciate if you let your client know that I am currently housing an associate of hers, a one Mr. John Silver.”

There’s a pause and the shuffling of paper. “She had mentioned that name to me,” Mr. Kanibe says, with the tone of a man taking scrupulous notes. “She expressed concern for his well-being. I attempted to locate him but was unsuccessful.”

In brief, Thomas lays out the events that led to Silver staying with them, even as Silver and James come to some grudging agreement on the plastic child-proof gate and move on to electrical outlet covers. “I am not entirely sure how long he will be in my home, but for now both he and his child are well and safe.”

“Thank you,” Mr. Kanibe says. Another pause. “I am…given to the impression, Lord Hamilton, that your interest in my client tended towards building a broader case against the Home Office. Is this accurate?”

Thomas frowns. “My interest would be in building whatever case your client wanted to build.”

A huff of breath. “As her representative, I am employed to advise her on how best to protect her own best interests. I am finding that the two are…divergent.”

“Is there some way that I might be of assistance in that regard?”

“Not legally, no. And as you say, I am not a messenger service. But if you were to visit her while in custody, to deliver your news about Mr. Silver in person…”

“I see. Yes, I believe that can be arranged.”

 

* * *

 

_Silver and Flint, observed_

 

Posey, it turns out, shares her father’s inquisitive nature. Silver never met a pie into which he didn’t want to stick his thumb; his daughter still lacks the dexterity to manage a similar feat, but she insists on being involved in everything going on around her, or at least positioned near enough to keenly observe the goings-on.

This translates to: Flint, at the stove, cooking a balsamic reduction and gradually becoming aware of a high-pitched whine. At first, he thinks the overhead fan is going out, until Silver lurches into his peripheral vision, scowling, with a baby in one arm and her newly-acquired high chair in the other.

“She wants to watch,” Silver says by way of explanation, setting down the high chair and the baby _in_ the high chair before stomping back to the kitchen table to poke at his phone.

Posey looks at Flint. Flint looks at Posey. The sauce bubbles, making Flint’s eyes water, or perhaps that’s the staring contest he’s losing to a ten-month-old.

Holding up the ladle in his hand as if an item of evidence in his defense, Flint says, “Spoon. Can you say ‘spoon’?”

Posey’s face lights up. “Oon!”

“Close enough. We use the spoon to stir the sauce. That’s quite a few s noises, except one of them is a c. I’m terribly sorry that you have to learn English, it’s really a bastard language. Thomas—Uncle Thomas,” he amends, glancing at Silver, who doesn’t appear to be paying attention, frowning at his phone, “informs me that we have some of the very worst tenses in the world, and that we would all be better served by adopting a Japanese form of verb agreement. Can you say ‘verb’?”

Posey scrunches her forehead. It’s disturbingly adorable.

Flint holds up a measure of sugar. “Tablespoon’?”

“Oon!”

“Very good.”

Flint proceeds through the prep of caprese salad this way, narrating each step and occasionally veering off into tangents on the improper classification of tomatoes as vegetables. Posey remains enthralled: she clearly recognizes basic eating utensils and can make noises that resemble their names. Those that she can’t say, she gestures at in an oddly deliberate way that Flint realizes is language.

He squints at Silver. “Did you learn sign?”

“A little,” Silver answers. He’s sitting at the table, his phone temporarily forgotten and his chin propped on one hand, apparently as enthralled as his daughter. Flint feels himself redden. Curse his Irish blood. “Baby sign, it’s all over YouTube. Apparently, babies know more words than they can say.”

Thomas comes downstairs right then, dressed for work. “You’ve an assistant,” he observes, taking one of the three plates from Flint and smiling politely at Posey, who stares back. She very obviously doesn’t know what to think of Thomas yet: he’s still giving her and Silver a wide berth, which means that he gets stared at—Posey—or studiously ignored—Silver—when he does enter the room.

“Are you going into the office?” Flint asks. “I thought you were still on sabbatical.”

“Just one meeting, as a favor to a friend.” Thomas pauses in the middle of cutting a tomato with a fork and considers Posey. “Is she signing ‘milk’ at me?”

That draws Silver over, though unwillingness is writ large in his whole body. “She sees you eating and thinks she should eat, too. You, uh, you speak sign?”

“A little.” Holding his plate aside, Thomas rolls his hand down over his belly, accompanied with an inquisitive expression. Whatever that means, it gets some furious nodding in reply.

“Okay, okay,” Silver says, lifting Posey out of her chair. “Mealtime.”

 

It isn’t like Silver never considered the possibility of Flint as a father—as _Posey’s_ father. He’s even dreamed about it a few times: Flint holding her, Flint feeding her, Flint brushing the auburn hair that mostly fell out in the weeks after she was born before growing back in a shade lighter. The dreams had either included a declaration of undying devotion or an understanding that the declaration had already been made.

Reality is…more nerve-wracking. Their makeout session notwithstanding, Silver doesn’t really know what Flint wants from him or how he and Posey and Lionel are going to fit into the kind of life that includes Thomas fucking Hamilton.

When Madi had broken off their relationship, she’d told him that he was greedy. Oh, not in so many words, she’d sugarcoated it; but Silver heard the message underneath. He wants too much affection, too much attention. To Silver it feels like a big black hole in his center, into which he shovels whatever he can—sex, passion, drugs, social media, a never-ending supply of cigarette butts ground beneath his heel.

Only one thing has ever come close to filling that void, and now he’s being asked to _share_ her.

See, Silver figures he’s got four, maybe five years. She’ll start pre-school at age three, but she’ll still be too young to look around and realize that other kids have two parents and houses and new clothes instead of patchwork socks, a van, and a one-legged sort-of-mother-sort-of-dad. Once that happens she’ll finally see him as he is: lesser. She’ll _know_ and even if she doesn’t come to resent him it’ll be out of _kindness_.

So when Flint pushes him up to sit on the bathroom counter and drops a hand between his legs, Silver adamantly does _not_ think about how he’s likely shaving off a couple of years by staying here. He wriggles until the backs of Flint’s knuckles are right where he wants them and then grinds into them, panting into Flint’s mouth, and he does _not_ think about how much money he could clear out of their accounts if he gets his hands on a PIN. He comes without taking off his sweatpants, while Posey babbles in the next room. She’s sitting in her new playpen, smashing the plastic buttons on some kind of musical device, all bought with Thomas Hamilton’s money. #capitalism

The dreams weren’t always dreams. Sometimes, they were close to nightmares, as Posey looked up into Flint’s face and spoke her first word, “Dada.”

 

* * *

 

_Madi, skeptical of white saviors_

 

Lord Thomas Hamilton, sixteenth Earl of Ashbourne and second cousin to the Queen’s brother-in-law, stands when Madi enters the room.

Her hands are cuffed in front of her and there is a guard present in the visitation room, since this is not a legal consultation, per se.

Lord Hamilton is a quintessential British nobleman, from the delicate bone structure of his face to his high forehead. His eyes, however, possess an unusual keenness of focus. He studies Madi as she takes a seat on the other side of the table.

“You look quite a bit like your father,” he comments once they have made their introductions. “I only met him a few times, but I admired his work a great deal. I was sorry to hear of his passing.”

Two years have passed since Madi’s father was stabbed to death by an attacker who sped from the scene on a moped and was never found. As such, the police never outright said that the attack was motivated by Hakeem Scott’s activism on behalf of the immigrant community of London; but there had been numerous threats, enough that he had removed his wife and daughter from the city entirely even while he himself remained.

“Thank you,” she says. “I have heard that sentiment from many sources—too many, many more than spoke in unison with my father’s voice in life. Perhaps all that admiration, if spoken sooner, might not have come too late.”

He blinks. “Well. You certainly cut right to the quick.”

“I am imprisoned, Lord Hamilton, for trying to continue my father’s work. Too many of those who express admiration for him have done _only_ that, and remain free.”

Lord Hamilton sits back, re-examining her. Madi knows that she does not cut an impressive figure: she is short, young, female, and dark-skinned, and she speaks with an accent. All of these things form a certain impression in the minds of even the most well-meaning white people. Sometimes, especially them.

 “While I do appreciate your offer of legal representation, you are not here to discuss my case,” she reminds him.

“No, I suppose not.” Lord Hamilton provides her with a verbal summary of how John Silver came to be living in his downstairs bedroom.

By the time he finishes, Madi has forgotten her recalcitrance and is sitting forward. “Was he hurt while in custody?”

“I don’t believe so. He didn’t mention any misconduct…”

“He would bite off his tongue before admitting such a thing.”

Lord Hamilton frowns. “Noted. He did not appear injured or mistreated when he was released.”

“Do you know if he has a supply of testosterone? He left some at my flat—if he hasn’t lost his key, it might still be in my refrigerator.”

Lord Hamilton notes that in a hardback journal that appears to have a sturdy lock on the front. She appreciates his discretion—though, she expects he’s more than accustomed to tabloids hacking his phone. “I understand he relies on you to help him with some necessities, for both him and Posey. Are any of those in your possession as well?”

“A few diapers.” She pauses, then adds, “I held onto some, in case he wanted to move back in.”

That gets her a quick look, which she returns impassively. Lord Hamilton continues, “He also listed you as next-of-kin on several medical forms. Do you know if you have power of attorney?”

Madi narrows her eyes at him. “Yes, for both him and Posey. That seems a rather detailed question to ask, unless you’re intending to make this temporary accommodation more permanent.”

“I am not intending anything. James would very much like to be involved in the life of his child, and I am involved with James.”

“And how does Silver feel about that?” Because _she_ can certainly guess.

Lord Hamilton presses his lips together then asks, “James said the two of you had met several times?”

“Yes. I liked him. That does not mean I will stand by while you take Silver’s child from him.”

“ _That_ is most certainly not my intention, Ms. Scott, and if you think that James would do so under any circumstances then frankly, I doubt that you actually have ever met him.”

Madi sits back, unfolding her hands. “All right, no. He wouldn’t. Sorry, I don’t trust police officers very easily.”

“Understandable,” Lord Hamilton allows, though he still looks offended. “I _am_ hoping to solidify our current situation, but with John Silver still present in our home.” Madi doesn’t try to keep the surprise from her face and he spares a quick glance at the guard observing them through the grate; she appears to be texting on her phone. “I assume that you know about…my relationship with James, and my wife.”

“Only what I have read. I am sorry for what happened.”

The shadow of grief passes over his face, but he gestures it away. “I was, too, for a long time: sorry, ashamed, and guilty. But now, I can’t say that I would change any choices that I made, even to marry Miranda Barlow. _Especially_ to marry her. I know what they say in the papers, that she was my beard, but the truth is—she was my best friend. She was the first person who _saw_ me and loved it all. In short, she was my wife. If it weren’t for her, I likely never would have had the courage to enter into a relationship with James.”

“And…now you hope to entreat Silver into a similar relationship?”

“No. I had considered it, but I find myself utterly without attraction for him.”

Madi lifts her eyebrows.

“Yes, I know. You must forgive me my faults.”

“To me, that seems less a fault and more madness.”

Lord Hamilton studies her. “Does it.”

This man is too keen by half. “I should warn you that Silver finds something or someone whom he desires, he clings to them with a fierce tenacity. He does not share his love easily.”

“I had noticed. It…must hurt, sometimes, to be loved by someone who loves you completely. I mean _completely_ , Ms. Scott, in total, with no reservation or thought even for their own self-preservation. Yes,” he says, to whatever Madi has been unable to keep from her expression. “I thought you might understand. They’re the same, aren’t they?”

Caught, Madi pauses enough that to lie would likely be pointless. “They do seem to have a…singular attraction to one another.”

“Not just to one another,” Lord Hamilton counters. “It demands a commitment in kind, and I—I confess that I frequently struggle with the hugeness of that demand.”

“So…you want Silver to…live with you in order for you to have a better relationship with your partner?”

“I want Silver to live with us because he’s the father of my partner’s child, and my partner loves him very much and is quickly falling in love with their child. And I want you, Ms. Scott, to ask yourself whether you, too, struggle with that same demand, and what you have done and are doing to escape it.”

Madi tilts her head, at first unable to follow his reasoning then incredulous once she can. “Are you…implying that I am in prison in order to avoid John Silver?”

“I went to the Arctic to get away from James. Oh, it was most legitimate excuse—Miranda had worked on the water rights of Inuit peoples for years, it was in her memory that I saw the legal dispute to its conclusion. Nor was my interest in their cause feigned in the slightest. But my involvement also took me far, far away from my partner, at a time when his rage and grief was overpowering and his affection…was not something that I felt I deserved.”

“It must be,” Madi says tightly, “so very convenient to find causes with which to occupy your time so that you can avoid your relationship troubles. But I do not have that luxury. I am the daughter of an immigrant, a man murdered for advocating for those who are the most vulnerable. When I speak, people listen. They do so because they know that this is my life, that I have suffered many of the same injustices that they have suffered. That I have lost a father to the hatred of others. Can you even imagine such a thing?”

“No,” Lord Hamilton answers, but then asks: “Can you imagine having a father so consumed with status and maintaining his place in polite society that he paid thousands of pounds to twist the mind of his teenaged son and, when that failed, murdered his son’s wife?”

Madi considers him for a long moment. “No,” she answers, despite her clenched fists.

They sit in silence for a long moment, until Lord Hamilton flips to a page in his journal and tears it out. It has writing on it; he prepared the page before he came in. When he passes it to her, Madi reads a street address in Chelsea.

“I have paid your bail. I do not expect anything in return, this is neither a loan nor a bribe. I have also,” he continues over her rising protest, “paid the bail of every member of your network who was arrested along with you, which Silver mentioned was your primary objection to accepting his money. Did you know he attempted to pay your bail in full, before your foundation redirected it to someone else at your request?”

Madi’s retort dies on her lips. “No. That is—where would he even—?”

“I don’t know, but in doing so he financially crippled himself, which directly led to his current predicament. He endangered the welfare of his child for you, Ms. Scott. I think you know better than anyone how difficult that must have been for him.”

His last volley made, Lord Hamilton nods to her then rises, carefully pushing in his chair and making his farewells.

As he reaches the door, Madi—against her better judgment—stops him. “Lord Hamilton.”

“Thomas, please.”

Madi so hates when rich white men forget their place; she never can. “Have you visited Silver’s Instagram account yet?”

That gets a confused stare. “No? Should I?”

“You may want to. They do allow us some Internet privileges, and I have frequently found that Silver is more honest via social media than anywhere else. Perhaps too honest, sometimes.”

Lord Hamilton furrows his brows and cocks his head, but Madi isn’t about to betray Silver any further than she already has, and simply returns the gaze placidly. Eventually he nods. “I’ll consider that advice, Ms. Scott, however enigmatic.”

 

* * *

_  
_

_Flint, a sudden understanding_

 

“Dada,” Posey says.

“Jesus Christ,” Flint exclaims, staring down at her. She’s leaning sideways in his arms, gazing fixedly at Silver, who snaps upright with the kind of speed that makes Flint ask, “Has she not—was that her first—?”

“No,” Silver says, though he’s holding rather still. “She’s…said that before. Not quite as clear. Hello, my little linguist,” he says, taking her from Flint with a genuine smile. He’d been messing about with the sausage rat and his harness. Apparently, they actually go for _walks_.

The second she’s in his arms, Posey loses the little bit of anxiety that Flint had been attempting to chase from her face with soft murmurs and bouncing. She’s not shy by any means but after a certain amount of time spent in the arms of someone _not_ Silver, she starts looking around for him.

Silver coos as he binds her to his chest, then bends down to finish latching on the sausage rat’s leash. That necessitates him balancing on one leg, his prosthetic sticking awkwardly to one side.

“Do you need—?”

“I’ve got her,” Silver says, too fast. His copious hair hides his face, but Flint can guess at his expression. He’s seen it before, though he didn’t understand it until Thomas was in the air and Silver took flight as well.

This time, Flint only hesitates a moment before he kneels and—God help him—corrals the squirming wretch until Silver can clip on the harness and, with a rough exhale, straighten up to both legs. Posey has her fists wound in his curls, as per usual. How she hasn’t rendered him bald is a testament to the strength of Silver’s follicles.

“Thanks,” Silver says. His face, now, is carefully blank again.

Before, Flint never said what he’d thought, afraid of spooking Silver. Thinking that it was too soon, until it was too late. “I…understand why you might be…nervous about letting other people hold her, right now, after having her taken away. But you must know I’m never going to do that.”

It’s awful: his family had a pointed aversion to conversations involving emotional depth, so he feels nothing in this moment except the wriggling agony that had prevented any attempt at broaching this kind of subject before. It would have been so simple: _I love you and I want to be with both you and Thomas_.

The idea of saying those words, however, is excruciating.

Silver starts to respond and Flint can see the way he’s taking it wrong. His expression has smoothed out. He’s going to speak and his voice will be slightly deeper and melodic.

“I love you and I want to be with both you and Thomas,” Flint says all at once then closes his eyes and wishes for death.

“Okay,” Silver answers slowly. It’s exactly as awful as Flint imagined but at least when he opens his eyes Silver isn’t looking at the window like a potential exit.

Flint says, softly, “I want to be her father, too. With you.”

 _That_ gets a visible panic response: Silver’s eyes flicker to one side then the other even as he says, “You’re not dying, are you? My God, you’re dying. You’re about to pop off from a brain tumor—”

“For fuck’s sake, this is as horrifying for me as it is for you, could you _not_ drag it out? I’ve said my piece, now would you—do or say whatever you want. Or not. Fuck.”

Flint starts to break for the door, until he realizes that he’s making the exact escape he expected from Silver, catches himself, and boomerangs back. In doing so, he finds himself the focus of not one but _two_ wary gazes.

 _She’s so like him_ , he thinks. But that’s not it: she’s _copying_ him and suddenly Flint _knows_ that it can’t happen that way. Little Posey should adopt Silver’s vivacity, his gift with words, his cleverness; not his mistrust of the motives of others.

Bolstered by this realization and his responsibility for its presence in the world—both literally and figuratively—Flint digs deep and says, “I want you to live here, with us, with Posey—even the fucking rat can stay if he must. Thomas has no interest in acting as a father but I do, and he supports that. Stop looking at me that way, you shit, open communication is important in intimate relationships.”

“Who _are_ you?” Silver demands, slightly wild-eyed. Posey makes a noise halfway between distress and inquiry, and he cups a palm over her head without looking away from Flint. “What have you done with Flint?”

“I’ve had an enormous amount of therapy in recent months. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Alright.” Silver had undergone a bout of required psychoanalysis before he transitioned, and left the experience with permission to transition, a scrip for anxiety, and a trail of beleaguered therapists.

“I want this to work out,” Flint reiterates. The fucking sausage rat is nosing at the cuff of his pants as if he’s about to try going up a leg. Flint scoots that foot backwards then remembers the leash and bends down to grab it off the floor. The rat immediately winds between his legs, and Silver coughs a strained laugh.

“C’mon, Lionel, before your little bladder pops.” Flint’s heart sinks into his stomach as Silver takes the leash from his still hand and heads out the door without even looking at him. He trails after, heartsick and feeling foolish; but then Silver stops at the front door and jerks his chin at the doorway, fumbling something out of his pocket as he does so—his vape pen, Flint realizes. He does have the courtesy to step outside before he exhales a plume of sweet-smelling vapor.

Then, without a word, he slides his other hand into Flint’s. It’s the hand with the leash in it, and Christ they must make a fucking spectacle: two grown men with a baby, walking a ferret down the street.

Flint holds tight and tries not to mind.

 

That is, until the first reporter appears.

 

Then the second and the third.

 

“Jesus fucking _Christ_ ,” Silver exclaims as they tumble back in through the front door. He has both arms wrapped around Posey, who is squalling loudly.

Flint, of course, is holding the bloody ferret, who has squirmed up around his collar in fright. “What the fuck did you do?”

“Nothing!”

“Silver! They knew about us, they knew I was her father!” Outside the front door, Flint can hear dogs barking; their neighbors have a pair of terriers who likely don’t appreciate the half-dozen reporters milling about in the street. “Who did you tell?”

“I didn’t fucking tell anyone!” Silver shouts. Posey is screaming. One of her legs has popped free from the sling and Flint desperately wants to tuck her back in, to comfort her, but Silver looks ready to lash out with his teeth if necessary.

“Yes, you did, though I doubt you meant to,” Thomas says from the other end of the front hallway. When they both turn in his direction, he beckons them. “Come away from the door, please. If they have directional microphones they’ll be able to hear us.”

Silver hesitates but apparently—for once—decides that Thomas is the lesser of two evils and follows. Flint deposits the wriggling Lionel onto the floor, where he promptly dashes after Silver.

In the study at the rear of the house, Thomas checks out the windows to the rear garden before tugging the curtains closed. They’re thermal insulating, but also noise dampening and completely opaque, and Flint praises his own goddamned forethought. After Thomas bequeathed his father’s property to the housing commission, no one ever tracked them down to this house; but Flint had prepared for that eventuality anyway and gives Thomas a significant look to ensure that he bloody well remembers, too.

Thomas rolls his eyes, the prat. Silver, meanwhile, is pacing the room with Posey, trying to quiet her. In the smaller, enclosed space, her cries are earsplitting. Flint cringes as she draws in another shuddering breath then expels it all in a wail. Silver, too, is flinching, but not from the noise. Every step sends his expression into spasm.

Flint aches to reach for them both, but Thomas nudges his arm. He’s holding out his phone.

At first Flint doesn’t quite understand what he’s looking at—the formatting is strange. There’s his face, and what he recognizes as Silver’s words, but it’s all within a box and there are other lines of text over it.

Once he finally begins to understand, he sits down. They have two lovely brown suede chairs in the study that envelope the body like a hug.

Slowly Posey wears herself out. She’s only cried like this once before: inconsolable, aimlessly furious. She pushes at Silver’s chest, making little fists like she wants to take a swing at someone. Eventually, though, she slumps against her father’s chest. Her face is a mess of snot and tears.

Tugging the cuff of his shirtsleeve down, Silver gently wipes her face. She huffs softly like she wants to cry again but doesn’t have the energy, and promptly appears to fall asleep, her mouth hanging open and a crease between her brows.

Silver eases down onto the ottoman, his head bowed over his daughter’s. He smooths one of his large palms over her head a few times then cuts his eyes sideways at Thomas.

“So,” he asks, his lips curving slyly. “How have I fucked it all up this time?”

It’s James who turns the phone around. Silver doesn’t appear the least bit surprised; he actually chuckles a little, shaking his head. “That fucking picture. I forgot it completely—I put it on my personal Instagram, I only mentioned you a, a few more times after that, but someone not only remembered it, they dug back through my Instagram history and screencapped it. They did _math_.”

“I see that,” Flint says, tugging at his goatee. Pride 2017, he’d been drunk out of his mind and wandering through the parade, cheering until he was hoarse for the elder lesbians on bikes and generally making an ass out of himself while he waited for Silver to get out of his shift at Comptons. Once he had, Flint had wrapped him up in an embrace that drew its own cheers. That had been the day, he thinks, when Miranda’s death had stopped feeling like his own, slightly deferred agony.

The night before, he and Thomas had talked on Skype. Thomas had said, _She would have wanted you to be happy, James. Both of us._

 _I wanted_ her _to be happy,_ James had retorted.

_She was. Do you think she stepped in front of you out of hatred, or in the hope you would spend the rest of your life punishing yourself for my father’s actions? Would she want him to have that much power over our lives?_

Happiness for its own sake had still been beyond James; but happiness out of _spite_ had kindled within him. _Fuck you_ , he’d thought viciously in the direction of Alfred Hamilton’s prison cell as he’d kissed Silver in the street, as he’d dragged Silver into the bathroom of the Walrus and fucked him until they were both slick with sweat, incoherent with heat and grasping at one another to stay upright while the bouncer banged on the door and threatened to phone the police.

He can’t say for certain that was the night Posey was conceived but it might very well have been. According to the detailed math at the bottom of the screencapped post, it’s a possibility.

“It’s a lovely picture,” Thomas comments. His expression is opaque, but he has the faintest quirk of a smile on his lips.

James looks at the picture again. Below it is another image, older: he’s walking out of Alfred Hamilton’s trial with his head down, surrounded by cameras. His face is clean-shaven and grim, nothing like the smiling, bearded, glassy-eyed man in the first picture.

He looks like he’s in love.

“You’re an excellent photographer,” Thomas is saying to Silver, who laughs.

“Now if only there were a market for candids of middle-aged queers.”

“Oi, I’m not fucking _middle-aged_.”

They both give him pitying looks.

“So!” Silver says brightly. “Where are we sending me? I doubt the van is repairable anytime soon but I can certainly—”

“No,” Flint says.

“—stay with a friend of mine until I get the money together. Shut up, Flint, I’m not fucking staying here and letting fucking Buzzfeed and the fucking Daily Mail get to know me better—do you think they’ve got to the underage prostitution bit, yet? Or the arrests for drug possession?”

“Silver,” Flint says urgently, perched on the edge of the loveseat. “Wherever you go, you risk the attention following. Are you really going to move in with a drug dealer while you’re maybe being followed about by tabloid?”

 

“‘One-legged transsexual hooker steals earl’s boyfriend’ makes for quite the story. You think I want Posey learning to read that headline?”

Posey stirs as Flint is trying to make a retort, silencing them all with a whimper. By the time she settles, it’s Thomas who speaks up. “I certainly won’t stop you from leaving at any point, but I should think you’ll want to stay until Ms. Scott gets here.”

That shakes Flint and Silver out of the pitched battle they’d been preparing. “The fuck do you mean?” Silver demands.

“Ms. Scott is being released, either today or tomorrow. Likely tomorrow, it may take a few more hours to process the paperwork.”

“ _How_.”

“I paid her bail.”

“And she accepted it? From you?”

“I did post bail for every member of her cadre, as well,” Thomas murmurs.

Silver laughs again, no more joyful than before. “Oh, of course you did.”

He falls silent for a long moment, the corner of his mouth tight and his gaze on Posey’s sparse hair. There’s a skittering noise on the floor around his foot—a sound that has become all too familiar in the past week—and then Lionel’s crawling up Silver’s prosthetic like a ladder. He squirms under Silver’s arm and Silver makes a little _naugh_ sound as a pointy nose explores the depths of his armpit.

Alright, fine. Flint is slightly charmed.

“How was she?” Silver asks, the words seemingly dragged out of his mouth.

“Well, I must say that, ah, she cut me rather deep.”

A grin bursts through the gathering clouds on Silver’s face. “Oh, God. What did she say? Did she call you white cis scum?”

“She implied that I’m a poverty tourist with hollow ideals.”

Silver laughs, clutching both Posey and Lionel to him. They squirm; Posey fusses but does not rouse. She’s a heavy sleeper, like Flint. God, Flint wants them to stay; he turns the phone in his hands over and over until he feels Thomas’ hand curl around his elbow.

Silver seems oblivious to Flint’s quiet distress. “Okay. Okay. I’ll stick around for that shit. Did you know, she called Flint a pig, to his _face_ , when they first met?”

“I believe it,” Thomas says, his fingers tangling gingerly with Flint’s.

 

* * *

 

 

_Thomas and James, returning to the trenches_

 

James sleeps upstairs for the first time in a week. When Thomas rolls over and bumps his nose against a familiar shoulder, something that had been fluttering anxiously under his breastbone settles for the moment.

They rouse in comfortable silence and go about their shared morning routine with deliberate methodology. After Miranda died, they’d rode out the initial storm of media in quiet that, while initially borne of unspeakable grief, became a sanctuary against the cameras, shouted requests for interviews, police inquests, and other assorted chaos that awaited them outside.

Thomas can only hope that this storm is a mere squall in comparison, but that doesn’t stop him from carefully lint-rolling a pair of trousers for James before draping them over the bathroom door. James, who had ventured downstairs, returns with two mugs of steaming coffee, one of which he has mixed with oatmilk until it is the same color as the dreadful khakis he used to wear after he first left the Navy. The routine soothes them both, until James even sets aside his inner turmoil enough to smile sweetly.

The morning sun is perfectly slanted through the window—the bottom shutter of which has been carefully drawn so that no one not in an airplane could possibly see into their room—to catch on the side of James’ face as he offers the café latte-ish to Thomas. The light shines through James’ pale, pale eyelashes as he smiles.

Taking the coffee, Thomas rests the heel of his hand on James’ cheek and hovers one fingertip. When James obligingly closes one eye, Thomas runs the pad of his finger gently through those glowing lashes.

“I do hope that Posey keeps your coloring,” Thomas murmurs, dropping his hand to wrap around the warmth of the mug. “Absolutely no offense intended to Silver, he’s a very handsome man, but I think even he’d agree that there’s something about a ginger.”

Something that includes the adorable way a ginger completely fails to hide a blush when complimented.

James sighs. “I’ll chat with Silver about the post. You don’t suppose we can convince Instagram to take down the photograph completely?”

“Oh, I don’t believe that will be necessary. Silver’s fans are rather, ah, _passionate_ , shall we say. I don’t believe I’ve ever met someone more capable of inspiring fanatical devotion. The individual who posted the screencap has not only removed it, they deleted their Instagram and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve changed their legal name as well. We’ll still need to talk to my learned friend Miss Guthrie and prepare some kind of statement for whatever press come ‘round asking for one. What do you want to say?”

“Fuck the press.”

“Yes, I think a blanket statement that asks for privacy will do quite nicely. Is there anyone who—how to ask this. Is Silver out to everyone who matters? Is there anyone to whom this might be the kind of surprise that would cause negative repercussions for him?”

Flint’s face has gone dark. “No one who’s still alive.”

“We’re going to avoid comments like that in front of the press, my dear. Those are the kinds of comments that stir interest, as would all refusals to discuss Silver or his presence in our house, so. Is he your friend? A previous fling with whom you had a child that you acknowledge and are supporting? Or do we blandly declare that he is staying in this house as your polyamorous lover and father of your child?”

“Not…not that one. Thomas, it’s not their fucking business.”

He looks genuinely distressed so Thomas lets him sit with it a moment, sipping his coffee and leaning in to press against James’ side. When he gets a sigh and an arm wrapped around his shoulders, Thomas says, “They will be more curious about a mystery baby than one you acknowledge as your own. Not to mention, I think it best to remove any whiff of suspicion that little Posey could be mine or that Silver was acting as a surrogate for us—you know how people are about royal babies these days.”

“You’re not royalty.”

“I’m royalty-adjacent.”

It’s an age-old volley and return that makes them both smile. James tightens his arm around Thomas’ shoulders and takes a long drink of coffee, wincing at the heat. He never waits long enough for it to cool.

Thomas continues, “Anyway, I expect that the Duchess of Sussex will start to have children soon, in which case you and I can go back to being the disreputably queer branch of the royalty-adjacent family. I expect keeping Miss Guthrie on retainer for a few months can’t hurt—the mere threat of her should scare off all but the more adventurous tabloids. The question becomes how to handle Silver, a task that I shall leave to you, but if you want any help—”

He breaks off, cocking his head in silent question. James’ expression has gone soft and fond. “I love you so much,” he says.

“Oh. Well.” It hits Thomas all over again, a flow of warmth in his chest. He’d spent so long numbing himself to the idea of ever having this, it is a revelation to hear again and again. “I love you, too.”

Setting aside both their coffee mugs, James takes both his hands. The callouses of his thick sailor paws enfold Thomas’ long fingers. “I know I’ve been distracted lately—”

“I think you’ve more than earned the right.”

“—but you’re my _partner_. I’m so, so lucky to have you.”

 _It hurts, sometimes_ , he’d said to Madi. He’d meant it. Other times, though, the hugeness of James’ love presses against him like a full-bodied kiss, enfolding him as surely as an embrace, and it chases away the voices of his father, therapists, and his own whispering insecurities. When James takes his head in his hands and kisses his lips, his palms fit perfectly over Thomas’ ears like he knows that Thomas needs protection, still, from all those things and more. Thomas can fight the world for water rights, the welfare of migrant workers, and the pardoning of political prisoners; but tasked with defending himself _from_ himself, his opening arguments falter.

“I’ve got you,” James murmurs as he deftly undoes the drawstring of Thomas’ pajamas. He always does.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Silver, teetering on bad habits_

 

The ground floor bedroom is slightly elevated from the street and tucked into the corner of the house, but it still has one large window through which someone standing on the sidewalk might, with some work, peer into the room.

The photographers have cleared out, following Thomas and Flint’s bland statement to the media. That the statement arrived via the office of Eleanor Guthrie, Esq., seems to have hastened their departure: Ms. Guthrie, London’s most notorious legal bulldog, had swept into the apartment, presented Thomas and Flint with papers to sign, glared at Silver for reasons that escape him, and swept back out again like Florence of the Machine, ready to summon a storm.

It also seems like his Instagram followers have closed ranks with a rather startling vengeance, turning on and casting out the poster who sent the screencap to Buzzfeed UK. Their fervor on his behalf would be gratifying if it weren’t slightly alarming. Silver’s never had much interest in being an ~influencer~ but apparently that’s an option he might want to reconsider.

He’s still pushed the bed away from the window and sleeps with his back turned against it, Posey safely on the bed near his belly.

Flint’s spent the last couple of nights upstairs with Thomas, whatever that means. Either he’s giving Silver some space or he’s reconsidering what he said. Silver doesn’t want to believe that he would—Flint had seemed so wretchedly sincere—but Silver’s had too many disappointments in his life not to doubt.

Posey wakes up happy. He’s been so lucky with her: she’s never seemed to mind where she was, whether it was in Madi’s house or the van or this, 1000-count Egyptian cotton sheets in a small flat that isn’t fooling anyone. So long as Silver is there or at least nearby, she’ll smile and gurgle a greeting. She seems to get the idea of ‘Good morning’ even if her mouth can’t quite make the words.

Now she wakes up and looks right at him and says, “Dada,” and Silver could die happy right here, pulling his baby against his chest. But that’ll mean not seeing her turn one, or two, or ten. When she was born, he’d thought there was nothing else in the world that he wanted except to make her happy; that’s still true, but now he’s painfully aware of all the shit he went through at one, at two, at ten.

He’s always known that what happened to him was horrifying. But seeing Posey—her big blue eyes watching his face with such open curiosity—Silver is filled by strangled rage on behalf of his past self.

It’s a fucked-up thing, to want to tell your baby not to trust the world as much as she does.

The idea sticks to him like squished baby food to the bottom of his toes. Thomas and Flint are quiet during breakfast, too, though Flint picks up Posey and walks her around the kitchen when she gets some gas from her Froot Loops. It seems like wheat doesn’t agree with her too much. Silver wonders if he’s about to become one of those parents who insists their kid has a strictly gluten-free, dairy-free, cruelty-free, non-GMO, #cleaneating diet.

He thinks he wouldn’t mind becoming that person if he has someone around to back him up.

There’s a weird, anxious waiting period after breakfast where they all go to opposite ends of the house—Silver to the downstairs bedroom, Flint to the study, Thomas upstairs—and Silver is pretty sure that Thomas, of all people, is the only one in direct communication with Madi. It’s only when he hears footsteps creaking downstairs that Silver sits up, tugging Posey out of her playpen into his arms.

Madi’s taken a taxi, of course. She doesn’t approve of Uber or any of its substitutes. She steps out of the cab wearing a dress of some kind; it’s got the look of something that Silver should know about, something traditional. He feels bad for never remembering what the different fabrics and patterns represent. She walks up from the street, making way for some lady with a pram, and nods to both Flint and Thomas before meeting Silver’s eyes.

Silver doesn’t mean to, really, he doesn’t. He’s always had contempt for the kind of asshole who can’t take no for an answer and Madi has told him ‘no’ plenty of times. He’s just so happy to see her and so relieved that she’s okay that he leans forward and kisses her, right there before God and Flint and maybe some tabloid photographers.

She kisses back, thank God, and Silver even gets to pull away first. Yay.

They go inside and eat some strawberries and mango. Posey’s pretty excited about the mango; she’s only ever had the canned variety. There’s some kind of bread, too, but after this morning’s gastrointestinal performance, Silver steers her away from the cursed grains. Posey gets a little fussy with him about it but eventually relents in the face of more mango.

He whisks her away to change her diaper after she eats and he kind of wants to take her out the front door. Just run for it. Out in the dining room Madi is talking to Thomas Hamilton about God knows what. Flint has been quiet.

Leaning close, Silver whispers, “You know who your da is, yeah?”

Posey smiles up at him.

He takes her out and puts her in Flint’s lap. Flint looks up at him in surprise; Silver’s only willingly handed him their daughter once before, but Posey seems perfectly at home in his arms, looking up at Flint with some kind of recognition.

Silver pulls on his jacket and goes out into the back garden. His smokes are still in the breast pocket;he has a feeling that vape juice isn’t going to cut it tonight.

He’s halfway through the first cigarette when the back door opens. Silver looks up and flinches. It’s Thomas Hamilton, who smiles apologetically. “May I join you?”

“It’s your flat.”

Thomas Hamilton takes that as permission, because he comes out and sits on the lawn chair across from Silver. There are only two.

Silver takes a long drag, burning the cherry down to almost nothing.

Thomas Hamilton huffs a laugh. “This reminds me of nights with James just after Miranda died. He’d never talk to me. Would just go out and smoke cigarette after cigarette until it was dark. We lived in a gated community, then, so I got all the notices in the world about the smell.”

“You never smoked?” Silver asked, unwilling.

“No. My bad habits ran more to rough trade, frankly. I’d pick up men in bars, ask them to have unprotected sex.”

“Was that…?” He’s never asked. Never bothered. He assumed they’d had some flower arrangements, shy glances over teatime or something like that.

“Oh, not quite. He was quite proper, you know. Offered me a health history. Apparently, they are very thorough in the Navy.”

“Shy glances over teatime?” Silver inquires with a sideways smirk.

“More like blow jobs in the cab after. Not quite what you were expecting?”

“Not…quite, no.

“Well. Propriety fell apart in the face of lust, I’m afraid.”

Silver takes another long drag, willing himself not to get wet at the thought. Thomas Hamilton is not an unattractive guy, but for fuck’s sake. He shouldn’t be wondering whether it was him or Flint scrunching down in the backseat to get some cock in his mouth.

“I was desperate to suck him off,” Thomas Hamilton informs him cheerfully, like he knows exactly where Silver’s mind has gone. “My God can you blame me?”

“No, not really.”

Thomas Hamilton smiles and it’s almost…friendly. The two of them, thinking about sucking Flint’s dick. Silver wonders whether Thomas Hamilton has ever gotten his tongue up under the foreskin and done a little circle around the head the way Flint likes. He doesn’t ask.

He does inquire: “Think they’re getting along in there?”

“Oh, yes. When I left, Madi was suggesting that James help her firebomb the prime minister’s office. James seemed halfway ready to help.”

“See, I know you’re joking but you might give her ideas.”

“Noted. Any particular reason you’re hiding amongst my shrubbery?”

“Christ.” Silver rubs his face. “Doesn’t anyone repress things anymore? We’re _Brits_ , aren’t we’re supposed to have stiff upper lips?”

“Actually, that particular turn of phrase is American in origin.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

Thomas Hamilton just sits there with a patient expression. “Based on what I know of you, Mr. Silver, this is the first time in years when the three people you love most in the world are all in one room together, and you have exiled yourself from their presence. I’m left wondering why.”

Huffing smoke out through his nose, Silver slips his cigarette butt under his chair while Thomas Hamilton has his head turned. “Flint asked me to live here, did he tell you that?”

“He did. Are you going to take us up on the offer?”

 _Us_. The distinction rankles. “See, the thing is—the thing is, I believe him. He says he wants both of us. Okay. Maybe he wouldn’t pick favorites, but that’s not the real problem, see? It’s me. It’s always fucking me. Just because Flint won’t pick favorites doesn’t mean I won’t always know that he _should_.”

Thomas Hamilton’s brow furrows. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”

Silver scoffs incredulously as he mimes ticking off points on an invisible list. “House in Chelsea, internationally-recognized human rights lawyer, fucking _earl_ of the fucking _crown_ …a functional dick,” he adds, and utterly fails to keep his voice from going soft and uneven. “Not to mention,” he continues at a louder volume when it looks like Thomas Hamilton might have something to say, “you’re the love of his fucking _life_. You should hear the way he talks about you—if you hadn’t fucked off to the Arctic, he wouldn’t have looked twice at me.”

“You should hear the way he talks about _you_ ,” Thomas Hamilton replies and Silver pauses, suddenly desperately hungry for something he never even knew existed. It’s bait on a hook and Thomas Hamilton reels him in. “Maybe you’re right, and you two wouldn’t have met if I hadn’t left. But I did, and you did, and if you truly think that you can’t have more than one love of your life, then I’d very much like you to explain your expression earlier today when you saw Ms. Scott in the flesh.”

The door opens again and Madi stands there, as if summoned. She looks back and forth between them; somehow Thomas Hamilton takes this as his cue to leave with some excuse that Silver doesn’t even hear.

Once he’s gone Silver asks, “Are you all fucking taking turns?”

She rolls her eyes at his belligerent tone and pulls the other chair closer to his, putting her feet in his lap when she sits. Despite everything, Silver automatically begins to knead at her arches.

“Ask me how I feel about being out of prison,” she commands.

“Jesus. I’m sorry, I’m being dramatic again, yeah? It’s just—it’s been—how are you? How was the bin?”

“I wrote a great deal and met many interesting women. They taught me their own language. Do you know what you call a free man who has sex with the wife of a prisoner?”

“What?”

“A Longjohn.”

“Go on, then,” retorts Silver, who’d named himself after the pirate. He’d been fourteen and high off his gourd on cat tranquilizers.

“It’s true. If you had come to visit me again, I would have called you that in front of them all.”

Silver ducks his head. “Sorry I didn’t visit more. I wanted to, but—Posey had a cold, and I—”

“John. I am glad you didn’t.” Madi knows all about Silver’s stints in the bin, most of which he’d spent in protective isolation.

His eyes fixed on her feet, Silver asks, “No one hurt you, in there?”

“No. It is different among women, I think.”

Scoffing, Silver fumbles out his smokes. “Should’ve kept my dead name, yeah?”

Madi watches him light a fag then holds her fingers out for one, too. At his look of surprise, she shrugs. “They taught me their bad habits, too.”

“Well. Two months in and you’re a regular baron.”

They smoke together in silence that begins to itch at Silver’s skin. He scratches his scalp, tugs at his ear, jiggles his foot. Stares across the immaculately-tailored garden. There’s some kind of herbs growing in the far corner in neat little pots. He wants to smash them.

When he looks again, Madi is watching him with her cigarette burning low. “Fancy a shag in the weeds?” he propositions. His voice is strangled.

“Later.”

That’s a surprise. “Yeah?”

“It has been a long two months.”

“Well, you know I’m good for it.” One day, he’ll stop falling into bed with people who show him the slightest bit of affection, but that day is not today. He rubs his thumbs across her feet with more intent, pasting on his prettiest smile for her. “I missed you, love.”

She frowns a little, studying him. “I missed you as well.”

“Well. I’m a hard man not to like. Heh. A _hard_ man.”

Madi rolls her eyes, handing back the fag for him to dump in the sneaky coffee mug that Flint and Thomas definitely haven’t noticed hiding under his chair.

When he straightens back up, Madi is right there. She kisses him and it’s reflexive to kiss her back. She tastes like cigarette smoke, a taste familiar to everywhere else but her mouth. This time she’s the first to pull away, though she stays close. The softness in her expression makes Silver look away.

“Don’t do that,” he rasps, fingers twitching after another cigarette. “If you want to fuck, fine, but don’t get my hopes up.”

She pulls her head back on her neck, staring. “Do you think that I would use you that way? If I wanted, I could find a different man, but I want you as you are. I did not just miss your body, John Silver, I missed _you_.”

Silver desperately wants to get up and pace, but she’s still got her feet balanced on his knees and he wouldn’t put it past her to go for the groin just to make a point. He hasn’t got the right equipment but it’ll still hurt like hell. “What changed? I’m not—I still have Posey. You still don’t want to be a mother.”

Madi sighs. “One day, I hope you will stop wanting the kind of family you never had and discover the family that you _have_.”

“I think someone made a song about that.”

“You should listen. Did you only ever want me because I could be a mother to your children?”

“No. Jesus.”

“So why is my lack of interest an obstacle? I understood, when you needed someone to share the burden of caring for Posey. I helped in the ways I could, but my work keeps me from being the kind of parent that a child deserves. But Flint? He wants that. I believe he wants that with you.”

Silver huffs a shaky laugh. “Christ. You sound just like him.”

“Why is this a problem?”

“Because I—! I don’t know how any of this is supposed to _work_! You all act like we can just take turns with each other, like—here’s Flint with the child care and here’s Thomas fucking Hamilton with the wallet and the legal advice and here’s Madi wanting to shag, and I don’t know how to—Madi, I can barely handle _one_ relationship.” He breaks off, laughing and shaking his head. “No, let’s be honest. I’m told that’s important. Judging from history, I can’t handle _one_ relationship.”

“Have you ever thought that only having one relationship contributes to your trouble? My father believed in communal living, with many people helping each other in many ways. He said that—”

“Man, _fuck_ your dad’s advice, he was a shite father.” Madi freezes, staring at him with her mouth open. Oh, fuck. “I mean—”

“How—you _dare_ to speak of my father this way? He was a _great man_ who helped you, gave you aid when you were living on the street, when no one else—!”

“Yeah, he fucking did,” Silver interrupts, his own anger overriding the alarms blaring in his head. “He did help me, and I’m grateful for that. But he fucking _abandoned you_. You’re right, you know, you shouldn’t have a kid if you know your work is going to, whatever, take you away, but that’s what he _did_ and you grew up thinking that you’re somehow less important than saving the rest of the entire fucking world. But you’re not, Madi. It was his job to make sure you knew _you_ were important, too, and he fucked that up.”

Madi is very still. A kind of perverse satisfaction bubbles up in Silver: time to ruin this relationship for good, apparently.

Except then her face crumples up and she kind of lunges across the space between them—not to punch him in the mouth like he expects but to land in his lap with her face pressed against his neck. Her shoulders jerk with heaving sobs that rise out of nowhere and break from her mouth like waves. Silver hesitates then warily puts his arms around her shoulders.

“How could you?” Madi gasps when she finally stops crying enough to speak. “How can you just… _say_ that?”

“Because it’s true.” He shifts, resettling her, and presses his nose against her hair.

She cries a while longer, clinging to the front of his shirt. Silver feels kind of guilty for enjoying the closeness, but hey, if she’s about to decide that she’s had enough of him, better get his cuddles in while he still can.

Eventually she shifts to sit next to him on the bench, wiping at her eyes. “You understand nothing of yourself and s-so much in others. How is this so?”

“Just luck, I suppose,” Silver replies, ducking to bump the edge of his forehead against hers. “Sorry. I wasn’t…meaning to pull that out on you.”

“Perhaps you should have.” It’s Madi’s turn to sigh and look out over the garden. She’s so beautiful, Silver thinks, even puffy-eyed. “I used to feel guilty for missing him.”

“Oh, Mads.”

She lets him hold her, even resting her head on his shoulder. It’s not often that Silver feels bigger than someone else—someone who has the capacity for adult human language, anyway—but he’s always been conscious of Madi’s small size. Someone needs to be: she walks around like she’s ten feet taller than she is.

“You’re a person, Madi,” Silver murmurs. “You get to want things.”

 “It has been easier not to,” Madi confesses in a small, tear-clogged voice, and Silver bundles her up close because he _knows_ that feeling.

Eventually they separate, both taking in another cigarette while they collect themselves. Then, of course, she says, “You should stay here. If you move back in with me, I will be irritable with you again.” He must look crestfallen, because she smiles and strokes a knuckle over his cheek. “I will come here often, though. I think I would like to teach Thomas Hamilton how to better spend his money and time.”

“Christ, don’t tell me you’re going to get _him_ locked up with you.”

“No.” Her eyes go distant a moment before coming back around. “I am going to take a plea bargain.”

Silver blinks. “You are?”

“I am.”

“Just like that? I begged you for weeks, for a _month_ , and all it takes is one visit from Thomas fucking Hamilton—”

“I refused the plea deals before because I did not see a better way to fight,” Madi interrupts. “But now I have made the acquaintance of a powerful white man with money, who I believe can be persuaded to share my values. And,” she adds, her voice faltering in a way wholly uncharacteristic to her, “I was not…indifferent to you, when you asked me to make a bargain. You are right that I—am not accustomed, to putting more importance on my own desires than my work. The greater the temptation to do so, the more I suppress that urge. I was never indifferent to you, John. I could never be.”

Taking her hand, Silver kisses her palm. “Well. I’ll take what I can get.”

 

* * *

__

 

_Flint, making his closing arguments_

 

Posey has long since gone down for her nap. Flint muddled through the process of changing her nappy and creating her sheet cocoon. How Silver managed to take care of her for ten months on his own, Flint can’t imagine; Flint’s only been alone with her for three hours and he’s terrified, not to mention slightly incredulous that Silver has picked this moment to just fucking _trust_ that Flint knows how to do basic things like slide a fresh nappy under her bum.

Can you lift babies by the ankles? Does it hurt? He risks it, wincing as he does so, but Posey merely squirms, studying him with a sleepy frown.

“Well, then,” Flint says, getting the rest of the nappy sorted.

They manage to get settled without incident, though Flint is fairly certain that her head wobbles a bit too much when he transfers her to the bed. She is still so small. Sometimes Silver will put her up his shoulders and perform a nonsensical hopping dance around the room that sets her to shrieking with delight, so Flint knows reasonably that she is strong enough to survive some minor jostling. She sits up on her own, is nearly ready to walk, but he still feels like one wrong move might break her irreparably.

When he puts her down in the sheets, her frown grows and her nose scrunches. “What?” Flint asks as she starts to whine. “Did I make the bed wrong?”

She continues to whine, which is no answer. Neither does she make any gestures reminiscent of signing, though she does stick her hands out in Flint’s direction. A strange, sticky feeling grows in Flint, full of awful thoughts that he can’t even bring himself to parse. She probably just wants Silver and is willing to accept any substitute.

“ _Please_ tell me you’re not pining for the bloody rat,” he mutters as he picks her up. Silver constructed some kind of apparatus with tunnels in which Lionel has been scurrying about, making a racket in the living room all morning. At least that keeps its teeth far away from Posey.

He’s only intending to shift her a moment while he reorders the sheets. When he picks her up she quiets down, but the second he leaves her sitting on the mattress, she starts to whine again. Blinking, Flint picks her up and sets her against his chest.

She quiets with her cheek resting against his shirt. Almost instantly, drool soaks through to Flint’s skin.

The tight feeling in Flint’s chest releases and slithers away for a while. After a bit he gingerly scoots back until he can rest against the headboard with Posey still on his chest.

By the time Silver comes in, a not-insignificant portion of Flint’s chest is covered in drool. “Sorry, I—”

Silver cuts off, his head tilted to one side. Flint wants to wipe his face but he can’t bring himself to move. His baby daughter is asleep on his chest. He can feel her little heart, her fast, short breaths.

Thank God, Silver doesn’t say anything about Flint’s red eyes, just climbs into bed next to him and curls against his side, his knees drawn up under Posey’s bum to support her.

 

“I missed you,” Flint whispers. Posey is still fast asleep and he half-suspected of Silver nodding off as well, but the head resting against his shoulder lifts immediately. Flint keeps his eyes averted, focused on where he’s playing with Posey’s limp hand. Her fingernails are impossibly tiny. “I didn’t miss you like I missed Thomas, or Miranda. Missing Miranda is…like never being able to return to a place where you always felt safe. When Thomas was gone I missed the way that he makes the world softer and brighter. You? Missing you was like discovering that I was a twin and that somehow I and that twin had independently developed a language which belonged to only the two of us. And then I was alone again.”

Silver mulls that over for a moment then says, “Madi thinks you and I should get married.”

Flint’s neck prickles. “Does she.”

“Yeah. Well, not in so many words, but yes. It’s a not-entirely illogical choice—it would absolve her of having to take care of Posey should the worst happen to me. And who knows, she might still wind up burnt at the stake, in which case, my backup plan goes up in smoke. Literally.”

“Silver. If I walked out and asked Madi about this right now, would she know what the fuck I was talking about?” When Silver’s only response is to duck his head and pluck at Posey’s onesie, Flint addresses his curly hair. “Silver. Is this you asking me to marry you?”

“No. Because you’ll say no, and I’m tired of hearing no. See?” he demands, sitting up and away when Flint huffs irritably. “I’m not asking, shut up. Anyway, you’ve got Thomas.”

Resting his head against the wood behind him, Flint says, “I’ve got Thomas. You’ve got Madi. I don’t think those situations are going to change, do you?”

Silver shakes his head, his shoulders hunched up. Flint wants to rub a hand across the back of his neck but that would mean moving.

Silver says, “When she was born, I thought—that’s it. I found it. I thought I’d only ever need her, for the rest of my life. But the older she gets the more I know she’s never going to feel that way about me. She’ll grow up and she’ll make friends and date people and that’s what kids do, yeah? They grow up and leave you behind. I’m never going to be enough for her.”

“ _No one_ is enough for anyone,” Flint snaps then drops his voice, glancing down. Posey sleeps on, oblivious. “Madi isn’t going to give up her work for you. I’m not going to give Thomas up for you. But I’m not going to give _you_ up for Thomas or anything else unless you fucking _make me_.”

There, thank God, is anger. Rage at Alfred Hamilton sutured the wound of Miranda’s death, and now he’s bloody _furious_ at Silver—or more properly, the bullshit in Silver’s head. It’s possibly not _healthy_ but dammit, Flint can be the better version of himself in therapy with Thomas later.

Now, he glares at Silver and says, “I am so very fucking sorry that I didn’t collapse into inconsolable grief when you ghosted me, you prick, and I’m sorry that Madi didn’t throw over her beliefs and career for you, and I’m sorry that Posey isn’t something that you can possess forever. Get the fuck over it.”

Silver stares at him for a long moment in silence and then sort of—slumps against him, tucking his curly head under Flint’s chin and nudging his legs under Posey again. Flint exhales shakily.

“I’m sorry I ghosted you,” Silver mumbles. His hand lifts and delicately traces Posey’s tiny ear.

“Yeah, well. Don’t fucking do it again.”

Silver doesn’t promise that he won’t, and Flint wouldn’t believe him if he did, so maybe they’re getting better about being honest with each other. Open communication is important in intimate relationships, after all.

Speaking of which: “A year,” Flint says.

“Huh?” asks the curly mop under his chin.

“A year of engagement, minimum. You’re right, it’s better for Posey to have the safety net, so, you live here the entire time, or with Madi. Madi and Thomas both sign off on it.”

Silver sits up. “Hnh?”

Rolling his eyes, Flint licks his pinkie finger. He half-expects a lewd comment about that but Silver only watches, wide-eyed, as Flint pulls off his grandfather’s naval officer ring and offers it to him. It’s chunky and ugly and likely too small for Silver’s huge hands, but there it is. Perhaps he’ll take it back with the excuse of resizing and get a tracking chip implanted while he’s at it. “I’m asking you to marry me, you asshole.”

Silver narrows his eyes. “Fuck you,” he says, snatching the ring out of Flint’s hand. “I will.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

“Well, that was very _us_ ,” Flint comments as Silver shoves the ring onto his pinkie. He feels strangely calm, but that might be the soporific effects of a sleeping baby on his chest.

Silver resettles against him, playing with the ring on his finger. After a while the door nudges open and Flint groans as something tugs the duvet. A triangle-shaped nose appears over the edge of the bed and Lionel sniffs about before hopping up and squirming happily between Flint’s ankles.

His back hurts where it’s propped awkwardly against the headboard, the baby drool on his chest has dried to a crust, and Flint still expects the fucking sausage rat to start nibbling on his toes at any moment. But he settles in and rests his cheek against the top of Silver’s head. In a bit, Posey will wake up and want to be fed, and Flint has every intention of sending Silver to prep some goddamned apricot puree while Flint takes a shower.

In all, not a terrible way to spend a rainy afternoon.

 

 


End file.
